The Foundation
The Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to the stewardship of Barbara and Eric Carle’s legacy.
Founded in 2005 by Barbara and Eric Carle, The Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation was established to help fund The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art as well as other nonprofit organizations. The Foundation is also the custodian of Eric Carle’s body of fine art—his “Art Art”—which it is committed to sharing with the public via exhibition partners.
The Foundation’s general philanthropic areas of interest are artistic, literary, and environmental. Organizations that embrace an interdisciplinary approach were particularly inspiring to the Carles, and therefore to the Foundation.
Please note: The Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant applications, and can not respond to individual requests for assistance.
The Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation currently supports:
Brooklyn Public Library
The Bushwick Book Club
The Cypress Hills Local Development Corp. Cesiah Toro Mullane Scholarship Fund
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
The Every Woman Biennial
FOLCA/Friends of Lawrence County
Glisten
Global Empowerment Mission (GEM)
Hogar Bambi
Irish Arts Center
Madison City Community Orchestra
Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center
The Secret City
Tennessee Valley Arts Association
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
VisionIntoArt
World Central Kitchen
“When I began to do well, Bobbie was the one who said, ‘We have to give back.’”
As co-founder of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and its first board chair, it was Barbara’s vision that shaped the museum. But the museum was but a facet of Barbara Carle’s career as an educator and social worker.
Born Barbara Ann Morrison in Statesville, North Carolina in 1938, Barbara arrived in New York City with a bachelor’s degree from Salem College, determined to make an impact. From the start, she did not shy away from tough cases, initially as a Montessori teacher in an outpatient clinic for mothers who had been discharged from psychiatric hospitals, providing their children with a sense of safety and stability. She worked as an adoption caseworker at the New York Foundling Hospital, helping to find homes for some of the toughest cases; and as a social worker at a methadone clinic in the South Bronx. After moving to Massachusetts with Eric, Barbara co-founded Side by Side, an innovative preschool founded on the premise that classrooms that are inclusive of both nondisabled children and children with developmental delays can be mutually beneficial.
Today, Barbara’s spirit lives on in the museum, which honored her posthumously with Bobbie’s Meadow, a planting of native wildflowers and grasses in its hundred-year-old apple orchard; in the Carle Honors, which celebrates those who elevate picture book art; and in the many lives she touched as a founder, an educator, and a philanthropist devoted to the arts, the environment, and the welfare of children.